


Ghost Stories

by DHW



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DHW/pseuds/DHW
Summary: Some stories begin at the end.Written for RiverTempest for the 2016 SSHG_Giftfest.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darkrivertempest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkrivertempest/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** The story is mine, but the rest belongs to JKR. 
> 
> **Prompt:** 3\. Hermione is a therapist, specializing in dealing with PTSD, and Severus has been ordered by (the Ministry, the Headmaster, etc.) to attend sessions with her to deal with his erratic behaviour. Severus digs his heels in, but Hermione's methods are so unique, he can't help but to succumb to her brand of therapy. You can make this as comedic or heart-breaking as you want.
> 
>  **A/N:** Thank you to Too_dle_oo and Krissy_cits for being lovely enough to beta this piece for me.

\---

**This is how it begins:**  


Severus Snape comes to St. Brigid’s Institute for the Psychiatrically Challenged.

He does not come willingly but in the arms of Morpheus and the Mediwitches who have been tasked with his collection. He is given a bed, a blanket and Healer, none of which he wants, but all of which he receives nonetheless. Severus is fifty years old. 

Only, that’s not quite right; the story really begins earlier, a hundred miles north, somewhere to the left of the Cairngorms, in a castle on a rock. It begins with fire and death and the gift of scars upon his arms that will never quite heal. It begins with pain and suffering. And, perhaps most notably, it begins with the ghost of a girl he used to know, once upon a time. 

Except, that’s not right either. In truth, it probably begins before that. Maybe with The Boy Who Lived Again and with the brush of death upon the floor of a shack, alone. With a war and the feeling of never quite fitting in. Or, perhaps, it truly begins with a little muggle-born girl and a letter, many years ago. 

Not that it really matters. Our story begins here, now. Halfway through the book, no turning back the pages. It begins with Professor Snape and a soft leather sofa. 

And it goes a little like this:

It is November and it is raining. There is tea steeping in the pot. Beside him sits a slight woman of thirty, her face hidden behind a cascade of bushy brown hair. 

Her name is Hermione Granger, and this is how it begins.

\---

**November**  


The evenings in Scotland come swiftly. They are as clean and sharp as a line drawn in the sand, night and day separated by the thin orange strands of the setting sun. A fleeting beauty before the terrors darkness brings.

Outside, the sky is beginning to darken. The last of the sunlight fills the room with a deep orange glow, casting the shadows of the trees, their branches bare and tangled, into stark relief upon the wall. Church bells toll in the distance, their mournful peal ringing across the valley. Severus glances out the window at the garden beyond the glass; the grass is wet with rain. 

“Professor Snape.”

That voice. He knows that voice.

“Miss Granger,” he says, all the pieces sliding into place as he wades through the mess of his memories. His hand, the skin cracked and weeping, rises to his throat, to the mess of tissue, red and raised, that graces the left-hand side. It is bare, left exposed by the soft cotton t-shirt, and for the first time since his arrival at St. Brigid’s, he wishes for his teaching robes. All high collar and cuffs, covering the scars, old and new, that weave their way across his skin. “I’d say it’s a pleasure, but…” He shrugs. 

“It’s Dr. Granger now,” she corrects him. She leans back against the sofa, her hands neatly folded on top of the thick stack of documents perched haphazardly in her lap.

A sneer curls his lips. He gives her a mocking nod. “My apologies.”

She doesn’t appear to take offence at his obvious contempt for her. She’d been fiery as a child, he remembers. Full of self-righteous anger. Severus expects her to reprimand him for his behaviour, as the others do, perhaps even snap back. But she doesn’t. Instead, she merely fishes a pen from the pocket of her shirt, setting to work on the paper before her with a blank expression and an air of quiet concentration. He watches the words spool from the tip of her pen, running like thin blue ribbons across the page in a familiar script. It reminds him of Hogwarts, of Potions lessons, her hand waving in the air, young and frantic, the ballpoint pen becoming a quill in his mind’s eye. 

The room gets closer, hotter. He can smell sulphur and pear drops and mandrake root. It is so hot. Too hot. His arms are burning, ripping, tearing. A flash of copper. Green eyes filled with fear. Smoke. He can smell smoke. 

The clock chimes five. He blinks. 

The room around him is silent save for the scratching of the pen, the burning stench gone. 

“I know what you’re doing,” he snaps, his heart pounding in his chest. He wipes his palms, sticky with sweat, on the soft cotton of his trousers. “And it won’t work.”

“Oh,” she says, her expression blank, innocent. She sets the pen down upon the paper, holding his dark gaze. “And what might that be?”

“You want me to talk. That’s what this is all about. The silence. The waiting. You’re waiting for me to open up. Spill my deepest, darkest thoughts to you.” He smirks at her. “Better people than you have already tried and failed on that front. It will take more than some slip of a girl with delusions of grandeur to best me.”

“If you’d let me just interrupt the flow of ignorant bile for a moment, I’d like to point out that you already have a psychologist assigned to your case.”

Severus sniffs. “Healer Fitton is an insufferable nitwit.”

She quirks an eyebrow, her lips pursing. “Do you not think you are perhaps a bit biased?”

“And yet?” he says with a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“Oh, I’m not here to replace him. You’re still subject to the pleasure of his company come Thursday.” She holds up a slender finger, silencing him. “Nor am I here to make you talk, listen to me talk, or for that matter, subject you to anyone else talking at or to you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because someone who has a far bigger office than I do seems to be labouring under the delusion that I might just be able to help you.”

Severus grimaces, his throat tightening with anger. He doesn’t want help. And certainly not hers. Insufferable girl, with her house elves and her books and her pity. He wants to tell her to piss off back home, back to her family and the boy wonder. To leave him alone. To let him suffer. 

Instead he says, “Your confidence in your own abilities is simply astounding.”

Dr. Granger shrugs, seemingly nonplussed. 

“I’m not a Healer. I’m an academic, and primarily a muggle one, at that. I specialise in posttraumatic stress disorder. And whilst I’m exceptionally good at my job, and have undergone the requisite training, I’d hardly consider myself an adequate substitute for even the worst therapist.” She sighs. “But, when the Dean asks you to jump, the expected reply is ‘how high?’”

They lapse into silence. Severus glances across at her through the curtain of his hair, carefully studying her appearance. It is almost like looking at a ghost; her face is a mere shadow of that which he remembers. It has lost the roundness of childhood, leaving high cheekbones and a hollow look around the eyes. Pink stains her cheeks, and her mouth, a handsome little cupid’s bow, is wet from the brief attentions of her tongue. She wears no makeup, only a frown. With a smile and a little more sleep, she might just pass for pretty. 

Severus swallows and looks away. 

“So what exactly do you plan to do with me?” he says. 

From a foolscap folder buried deep within the stack balanced upon her thighs, she withdraws a notebook. It is small, about the size of his hand, and bound in hard, green leather. She places it in his lap. 

Severus picks it up, thumbing through it with ill-disguised contempt. “It’s empty.”

Dr. Granger rolls her eyes, addressing him like a particularly dim child. “Obviously. It’s a notebook. That’s how they’re made.”

“And I expect you want to make me fill it? Is that your game, Dr. Granger?” The book slips between his pale fingers, hitting the floor with a bang.

“Ten points to Slytherin. I want you to write stories in them.”

He blinks. “Pardon?”

“Stories. Fiction. ‘Once upon a time’ and so forth.” 

His eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why?”

“Humour me,” she says with a shrug. 

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t. It’s your choice, Professor.”

“Choice. How novel.”

“There’s small choice in rotten apples.” 

“Shakespeare, Dr. Granger? A little trite, don’t you think?”

A small smile curls at the edges of her lips. Severus shifts uncomfortably in his chair. He’d been right. She was pretty when she smiled. 

“Perhaps. Give it a go, Professor,” she says gently. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “It might help.” 

He watches as she rises from her seat, smoothing the creases from her jacket as she stands. Bending down, she picks up the book, placing it back in his lap with a pat. She smells vaguely floral, he notes. Of jasmine, maybe. Perhaps mixed with bergamot. He takes a deep breath, his eyes closing, her scent clouding his senses. 

When he opens them, she is gone.

\---

**December**  


The moments before sleep are the worst. For in the silence of the night, on the edge of dreams, he is truly alone.

Memories, incomplete and fragmented, come to him then. They flash before his eyes in a cacophony of sound and fury. The crack of thunder overhead; a hint of a face framed with copper; the scent of blood and ether on the breeze. They curl through his mind like smoke, penetrating the fog with dark, wispy fingers, reminding him of what awaits once his eyes close. Of the ghouls and ghosts that stalk his dreams, his nightmares. 

The candles wink out as the clock strikes eleven, plunging the room into darkness with the soft chime of bells. Shadows slip through the crack beneath the door, clawing across the carpet on their way to the bed. They stretch across the floor, twisting, morphing, mutating in the wake of the light that creeps in from the corridor beyond. Monsters of a half-forgotten past come back to haunt him. 

They paralyse him with something almost like fear, leaving him frozen beneath the covers, his heart beating a tattoo against the tender bones of his chest. He closes his eyes and tells himself there are no monsters.

There are only shadows.

\---

**January**  


“Professor Snape? Professor, can you hear me?”

Severus blinks as the question cuts through the high-pitched buzz that rings in his ears. He takes a deep breath, feeling more than a little disorientated. His thoughts moving with all the speed of syrup; he frowns as he tries to remember exactly where he is. Someone has placed a blanket around his shoulders, he knows that much, and he appears to be outside. It is snowing. 

Slowly, he becomes aware of a slight figure, wrapped in a thick woollen coat, standing beside him. Dark brown eyes peer out from beneath an oversized bobble hat, sizing him up. They are full of concern. 

“What?” he grunts irritably, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. It is cold and he is dimly aware that he isn’t wearing much more than a t-shirt beneath it. His arms ache from the chill; pale flesh riddled with angry red ridges, the damage weaving around his forearms like snakes. 

“Do you know where you are?” 

The voice is familiar. Not comforting, but most definitely familiar, and female, if he isn’t mistaken. It tickles the edges of his memory, the name of its owner remaining just out of reach. It is as though his head is filled with cotton wool. Severus takes a deep breath, trying to clear the fuzzy feeling that sits at the base of his skull.

“St. Brigid’s,” he says slowly, his tongue thick in his mouth. He swallows, shaking his head. “In the gardens.”

“And why are you in the gardens?”

Severus frowns. Why is he in the gardens? He can’t remember. All he can remember are the dreams, silent and feverish, filled with half-remembered faces and the stench of burnt flesh.

“I’m here because I…” Severus trails off. The icy wind penetrates the heavy fabric of the blanket, pricking at his frozen skin; he shivers, closing his eyes in a vain attempt at concentration. 

“I thought as much.” Severus’ eyes snap open as she places a tentative hand upon his shoulder. Her skin is mottled blue from the chill. “Perhaps we ought to go inside. We have a meeting today, unless you’ve forgotten, and I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather sit somewhere with a roof and central heating.”

Suddenly, the mist clears. He casts a surprised glance over his surroundings and at the woman beside him, as if seeing them for the first time. His eyes narrow in wariness. “Dr. Granger.”

“Yes. That would be me,” she says gently. “Come inside. You’ll catch your death out here dressed like that.”

“Chance would be a fine thing,” he mutters darkly, beginning to shiver. He fists his hands into the rough material of the blanket and glares at the young woman next to him. 

“You shouldn’t say things like that.”

“And you should mind your own bloody business!”

Dr. Granger folds her arms across her chest, a loud sigh escaping her lips in a hiss. “Honestly, Professor, anyone would think you wanted to freeze to death out here.” 

“Perhaps that is what I want, Dr. Granger.”

Her eyes harden. “Only Father Christmas cares what you want. I have a responsibility to you that I happen to take very seriously. Now come inside with me or I shall be forced to take a more drastic approach.”

She extends an arm in the direction of the door. 

Severus rolls his eyes. “Your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired,” he says snidely. 

She snorts in reply. “I studied psychology, not medicine. Bedside manner is hardly an important aspect of the job. Besides, I think that’s all rather pot and kettle, don’t you?”

“I do not claim to be a therapist.”

“Neither, as you may remember, do I,” she says pointedly. “Have you written in the book?”

He doesn’t reply. Instead he turns smartly on his heel and marches back inside. Upon his beside table, the notebook remains untouched. 

But not quite forgotten.

\---

**February**  


Every day feels the same.

Eat, sleep, breathe, repeat. A circular existence, remarkable only in its uniformity, looping round and round like the hands of the clock on his bedside table. Functionally static, nothing changing save the numbers that grace the calendar on Dr. Granger’s desk. 

His fingers sweep over the wall, tracing the cracks and fractures that run through the off-white plaster. It is cold to the touch, the chill seeping down deep into his bones until they feel so brittle they might snap. His breath catches in his lungs and he wonders if this is what it feels like to die, to feel nothing but the cold press of the world. To leave behind little more than gaps and spaces, spiralling lacunas in the lives of others. 

He wonders if it would be better that way, his legacy nothing more than the flicker of memories and empty notebooks. 

Every day feels the same; they are cold, empty, filled with the ticking of clocks and hollow words. The sun rises and the sun sets and nothing changes. Every night feels the same; still the nightmares remain, forever haunting the minutes of sleep he chases through the starry night.

“Every day is the same, Dr. Granger,” he says, unable to meet her searching gaze. “It is as if I am destined to live a life of tedious repetition.” 

She sighs and hands him a cup of tea, her fingertips brushing briefly against his own. 

“We make our own destiny.”

\---

**March**  


The gardens of St. Brigid’s are at their most beautiful in the spring. Flowers bloom, bursting from once-bare beds in a riot of colour and scent. Tulips and daffodils and snowdrops, each carefully curated, surge forth from the frozen ground, their delicate petals swaying with the westerly breeze. The scent of wisteria fills the air, its pretty purple blooms hanging low and full over walkways and doors. And the grass loses the pale cast of winter, becoming lush and verdant with the promise of rain yet to come.

Spring. New life. The tiny green tendrils hailing the changing of the seasons, the turn of the wheel. Winter’s icy grip broken once more. 

Severus sits beside the lake, watching the wind cast ripples across the surface of the water. The bench beneath him is cold, the chill of the wrought iron slats seeping through the thick fleece of his trousers, branding the pale skin beneath. 

Minerva sits alongside him, basking in the weak warmth of the spring sun. She looks older than he remembers, her face little more than deep creases and paper-thin skin. Her hat, the brim wide and grey, casts her eyes into shadow, leaving nothing more than dark hollows and the suggestion of spectacles. 

She looks for all the world like a little old woman, frail and fragile. Innocuous. 

A small part of him hates her. Hates what she once was, what she has become; a witch that sees only in black and white, right and wrong, the world bending around her and him with it. It is her fault that he is here, in the garden, in St. Brigid’s. He lives because she wills it, because he has no other choice.

The betrayal cuts deep. 

Self-consciously he tugs at the sleeves of his coat, feeling the heavy wool catch against the cracks and ridges that litter the pale skin of his arms and hands. The outward sign of an internal shame, each another nail in his coffin, all too deep to heal. 

“They don’t blame you, Severus,” she says gently. 

“And you?”

Minerva’s hand wraps around his, her fingers curled tightly around him, around the scars and the stitches. Her grip is like steel. Strong. Unbending. 

“I never did.”

“Then why send me here?”

With a sigh, she removes her hat, setting it down upon the damp slats of the bench. Her eyes bore into his. The irises are flecked with amber. Cat's eyes. 

“Because you need someone to help you see that.”

\---

**April**  


He begins with ‘Once upon a time’.

It is, he reasons, how stories begin. Well, the good ones at any rate; the ones he remembers from his childhood, the ones his mother whispered to him in the dark. Stories of noble kings and dashing heroes, of fair maidens locked in towers and in rooms, of dragons guarding riches untold. 

It seems fitting. His armour may be dented and his horse lame, but he is a Prince and this is how such tales begin. 

The pen is heavy in his hand, the shaft thick and unwieldy between his stiff fingers. He grimaces as he grips it, pressing the nib into the paper with a grunt. 

“I must be insane,” he says, his voice echoing through the empty room.

And maybe he is. Maybe he’s as damaged as they say, his mind nothing more than fragments and half remembered recollections. After all, he reasons, why else would he be here, in St. Brigid’s, living amongst the broken and the lost if it were not so? 

Not that it matters. Not here in his room, alone with nothing but ghosts for company. He writes regardless, his story pouring out onto the paper, captured within the notebook in smudged blue ink. His hand cramps, but he doesn’t stop. Instead, he continues to write, his thoughts unwinding from the nib in cathartic little marks. The minutes pass in a blur, the silence broken by only the quiet scratch of pen against paper. 

He looks at the clock just as eleven strikes. It is later than he expects. The candles gutter out with a hiss and he lies in wait for the nightmares, rigid beneath the blankets. But tonight the shadows do not come. 

The pen falls to the floor with a clatter.

It is six months since his arrival at St. Brigid’s.

\---

**May**  


Lucius, as always, sits by the window. His hand grips his cane, now more an aid than an affectation, his knuckles white. Catching Severus’ look, he says, “We never really heal. We just learn new ways to survive.”

And they do. He thinks Lucius might just be right about that. After all, there is a first time for everything. 

“Tea?” Severus asks, gesturing toward the pot with a shaky wave.

Lucius nods, his teacup clattering noisily against the saucer as he slides it across the table. 

It is Wednesday. Visiting hours run from two till five. And technically, they are having tea. It’s a ritual of a sort, one they follow each week. Two old friends learning new ways to get by. 

“Severus?” 

“I’m not mad,” he says.

It is the beginning of an argument they’ve had before. One they will have again. 

“Debatable,” Lucius retorts with a tilt of his head. “If one will go off and make a quiet appointment with the business end of a wand…”

Severus holds up a hand, cutting him off. “It was once and I’m past that now. Besides,” he says, sipping delicately at his tea, “they took my wand from me when I arrived.”

“Good thing too,” Lucius replies with a nod, as close to sympathy as he ever gets. “Your lack of self preservation was decidedly un-Slytherin. All rather disgraceful, if you ask me.”

They could be anywhere in the world. Even any-when. Technically talking over tea. Lucius takes his black, no sugar. Severus, white. And nothing changes about that. Every Wednesday is the same. 

“I’m not mad,” Severus repeats. “I have PTSD.”

It seems important to make the distinction.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. Madness has nothing to do with it.”

“Sounds frightfully muggle.”

“It is.” Severus sniffs, his eyes narrowing. “Which doesn’t make it any less accurate a diagnosis.”

“Perish the thought.”

Severus coughs lightly, a small smirk settling upon his lips. He takes a sip of tea. 

“I saw one of your old students on the way in,” says Lucius casually, picking lint from the front of his robes. 

“Hardly unusual.”

“One of Potter’s old chums, in fact. A certain Miss Granger, if I’m not mistaken.” He takes a dainty sip from his cup, pinkie elevated. “I must say, I was rather surprised to find her still here. I thought they’d packed her off years ago.” 

“Sorry?”

Lucius sets his cup down, his forearms resting heavily upon the armrests as their eyes meet. 

“Miss Granger. She must have been here a good, what? Ten years?” His eyebrow arches, a wry smile creasing his porcelain features. “Doesn’t bode well for you, old boy. A decade on and still as mad as a box of frogs. Well, you know how the old adage goes; you win some, you lose some.”

“It appears I find myself at somewhat of a disadvantage,” says Severus. “What on earth are you on about?”

“Of course, you don’t know,” Lucius mutters almost to himself. “It was so soon after the war. You’d have still been in St. Mungo’s.”

“Know what?”

“She cracked. Rather spectacularly by all accounts. Tried to fling herself off the Ministry roof. Something to do with the death of her parents, I believe.”

“Her parents?”

“Some sort of automobile accident. It was all over the Prophet for weeks,” he says with distaste.

“So they sent her here? To St. Brigid’s?” 

“Obviously.”

“She works here now.” Severus’ mouth thins. “As my therapist, of all things.”

Lucius snorts. “That seems spectacularly unwise.”

“Quite,” he says softly. 

Outside, in the garden beyond the window, he can hear the birds chirp and sing. The room feels like a cage. 

“I think you’re right about healing,” says Severus, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. His fingertips brush against paper and soft green leather. 

Lucius smiles. 

“But we do survive.”

\---

**June**  


Severus and the good Dr. Granger sit side by side upon on the sofa in her office. The leather, brown and worn at the edges, creaks beneath them as they make themselves comfortable. Rain batters against the window, fat droplets loudly striking the glass.

It is a Tuesday. 

“Why psychology? Why something so muggle?” he asks, picking at the stray thread that dangles from the hem of his shirt. “You were a clever witch. It seems a waste.” 

Dr. Granger contemplates him silently, her hazel eyes wide and unblinking. Her teeth worry her bottom lip, a sight he finds oddly becoming. It makes her look younger, softer, uncertain. Almost like a girl he used to know, one with red hair and a perfect sort of smile, back before everything became quite so complicated. 

“During the war, I was tortured for hours upon the floor of Malfoy Manor,” she says. Her hand trembles as it rubs over her heart, the dark fabric of her blouse bunching beneath her fingers. “I have no memories of it, only scars.”

Severus blinks. It isn’t really an answer, and certainly not the one he expected (her parents, their demise). Yet, somehow, he understands. 

“It’s probably for the best,” he tells her with a nod, his eyes dropping to the ruin of his hands. He flexes his fingers, wincing as they pop and crack, the joints stiff beneath skin that will never fully heal. 

“Perhaps.” Her gaze follows the movement and a small, bitter smile curves the edges of her lips. “I know you remember how you got yours.”

And he does. He remembers it all. The benches of his classroom, cauldrons hot and bubbling; a slice of mandrake as it slipped between careless fingers; the flick of a wand, possibly his own; a face rent in two, copper hair consumed by flames. The scene skips and repeats like a broken record, replaying over and over behind his eyes. 

“There was an accident. Fourth year Potions.” The words bubble up before he can stop them, spilling forth from his lips in a rush, as if fleeing from him. And perhaps they are, escaping from the cage he’s kept them in for so very long. “Her name was Rachael Greenwood and I couldn’t save her.”

“I know.”

She places a hand gently upon his knee. An unexpected heat begins to burn deep in his belly at her touch. It makes him hot, almost too much so, and more than a little nauseous, leaving a tightness in his groin and an ache in his chest. Severus closes his eyes, the lids scrunching up tight, pulling his face taut as though in pain. 

“She looked like Lily,” he whispers. “And I couldn’t save her.”

\---

**July**  


The moments before waking are the worst. For in the light of the dawn, on the edge of dreams, he is no longer alone.

The nightmares have gone with his confession, replaced with a new torment. One of flesh and blood and need. Of chestnut curls and silken skin. His hands smooth over the soft cotton of his sheets, fingertips tracing patterns in the fabric as he sleeps, dreaming of her. 

The first light of dawn pours through the blinds, dust motes dancing in the golden beams. He wakes with the light, hard and aching, futilely grasping for the shadow of the woman who shares his dreams. His fantasies. 

His hands fist into the heavy blanket and he wonders if history is cyclical. If this is to be his life, eternally repeating, doomed to make the same mistakes forever. His destiny may be his own to make, but his heart belongs to another, just as it always has. Love is like that. 

Complicated.

\---

**August**  


”Where will you go?” she says, spooning tea leaves into the waiting pot with an efficient air.

The question catches him unawares and he blinks. 

“Pardon?” 

“When you’re released. Where will you go?” Her voice is light and airy, carrying only the slightest hint of concern. 

Severus tenses, suddenly uneasy. 

Unable to meet her gaze, his eyes dart to the pot upon the desk. Steam curls gently from the spout, bringing with it the faintly spicy aroma of cardamom and bergamot. Without invitation, he reaches across the desk, grasping the little white teapot that sits before her. His hands shake as he pours and Dr. Granger looks away, embarrassed, a faint blush blossoming across the delicate skin of her neck. 

“Back to Hogwarts, I expect,” he says as he adds milk to her mug and a single sugar to his. 

“Do you think that wise?”

“My thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.”

Dr. Granger sniffs, unimpressed with his answer. “If you say so.”

He takes a cautious sip, watching her carefully through the fragrant haze that rises from the cup. 

“Will you visit?” he asks through the steam. 

“I doubt you’ll need me anymore,” she says quietly, her hands curled around her steaming mug. “If, indeed, you ever did.”

His heart stutters to a halt in his chest, skipping beats at the thought of their parting. He feels the world shift and tilt beneath him, as though realigning itself, a life lived without her suddenly unthinkable. 

“And what if I don’t know what I need, Dr. Granger?”

He places a hand on her arm, the ruin of his left thumb absently tracing circles across her sleeve. He swallows roughly, his eyes boring into hers, all heat and tension and curiosity. 

“I doubt that’s true,” she tells him, her voice barely more than a whisper. A small smile, almost shy, tugs at the corners of her lips. “And my name is Hermione.”

\---

**September**  


She tastes like honey. Sweet. Innocent.

It seems almost obscene.

The summer breeze plucks at his silvering hair as his mouth moves against hers. She is soft and yielding to his touch, lips parting slowly, her tongue darting out to drag him deeper. Severus closes his eyes and for the first time in almost a year he feels alive. His blood pulses hotly through his veins and he can feel his heartbeat ringing in his ears, pounding against the drums.

“Merlin, Severus,” she moans, her words hot against his lips.

His hands fist into her hair at the sound of his name, his fingers grazing across her scalp, pulling her closer. Her body is flush against his and the pleasure of it is almost agonising. 

This is inevitable, he thinks, as his fingers thread through the silken strands. It is how things are. How things always will be. Men and women behaving as they always have, complex instruments of hormones and biology. Halves becoming whole, more complete together than they ever were apart. It was only a matter of time before it happened to them. 

He feels her hands smooth up the front of his shirt, hot even through the fabric. They push hard against him as they reach his chest, sending him sprawling back onto the grass. 

Suddenly, she is upon him, straddling his thighs, her mouth ravaging his with something almost akin to cruelty. Her hips begin to rock against his and he feels as though world is about to end, exploding with him into a million tiny pieces. His hands fist into the grass beneath him; the skin cracks as his knuckles turn white, the pain of it consumed by the pleasure that thrums through his veins. 

“Come with me,” he says between kisses, between gasps. “When I leave St. Brigid’s. Come home with me.” 

She freezes above him. Her lips leave his and suddenly he is cold. Bereft.

“I-” she hesitates, her hands threading through the tangled mass of her hair as she thinks. Abruptly, she pushes him away, her hazel eyes wide. “We shouldn’t be doing this. This is wrong.” 

And then she is gone, leaving him alone and panting upon the lawn.

\---

**October**  


It’s been twenty-seven days since he’s seen her last. Six-hundred and fifty-three hours, forty-eight minutes, and nineteen seconds since she left him alone on the grass, his heart shattered in his chest. It feels like a lifetime.

His hand rests upon the soft green leather of his notebook, fingertips tracing the gilt edges. No longer empty, it is a book filled with stories, each page another time, another place. A book full of half-forgotten beginnings and unhappy endings.

He closes his eyes, leaning back against the pillows, alone.

This is the life he lives now. A life of fading shadows and the ghosts of stories that never were.

\---

**November**  


His release comes with the first frost of winter. The grass beneath his feet crunches as he walks, the frozen blades snapping under the weight of his dragon hide boots. His cloak swirls around him, heavy and black, billowing behind him as he strides purposefully towards the gate, away from St. Brigid’s and the last of his ghosts.

It is bonfire night. 

Above him, golden trails arc across the sky, their paths ending in vibrant bursts of colour and sound that tumble down with the rain upon the waiting crowd below. At the edge of the grounds, a bonfire burns bright, its hot orange flames climbing towards the night sky. 

There is a tug at his sleeve and he slows, turning. Beside him stands Dr. Granger. 

Hermione. 

Her cheeks are flushed from the chill, pretty and pink. She looks like a goddess, wrapped in fine wool and soft leather, the wind snaking its icy fingers through the spiralling tendrils of her hair. His breath catches in his throat at the sight of her. 

“Hello, Severus,” she says shyly, not quite able to meet his gaze.

“Why did you come back?” he asks softly, his hand reaching out to cup her cheek.

Her skin is soft beneath his frozen fingers. 

“For you.” She looks up into his eyes then, the light of the fire casting shadows across her delicate features. “I came back for you.”

“The first time, or the second?”

She shakes her head and his hand drops away. “Does it matter?”

“No,” he whispers. 

And it doesn’t. Not anymore. Not now she’s here with him, her hand on his arm, standing beside him in the rain. 

“Let’s go home,” she says simply, a small smile playing about her lips.

“To Hogwarts?”

Her smile widens and she shakes her head, her silken curls swirling around her shoulders with the movement. The strands glint in the moonlight. 

“No. Home.”

She holds out her hand and suddenly he understands.

\---

**This is how it ends:**  


Severus Snape comes home.

No longer lonely but filled with love and hope for a woman he’s come to know once more. Their scars never really heal, but they learn new ways of coping. New ways of surviving. Together. And they live happily ever after. 

Except, that isn’t quite right; the story really ends later, years later, in a cottage by the sea. It ends with two old hands clasped upon a bedspread and the lapping of the waves against the shore. It does not end here. No, this is another beginning. 

And it goes something like this:

It is November and it is raining. There is tea steeping in the pot. Beside him lies his lover, naked between the soft cotton sheets, her hair twisted around the lengths of his ruined fingers. 

Her name is Hermione Granger, and this is how it begins.


End file.
